GMH Communities Trust (NYSE: GCT) is up 61% on a buy-out offer from American Campus Communities (NYSE:ACC).

DepoMed (NASDAQ: DEPO) is up 26% on positive drug trial news for one of its menopausal drugs.

IndyMac ((NYSE: IMB) is down 17% on weak earnings and a dividend cut.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: VRTX) is down 9% on poor earnings.

Stocks may trade differently in the pre-market than they do in the regular session.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Merrill Lynch, Yahoo! and T Rowe Price were today's noteworthy downgrades:

• Oppenheimer downgraded shares of Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) to Underperform from Perform on valuation and their negative outlook related to the monoline insurers given MER's overall exposure to sub-prime mortgage related assets. The broker believes MER could have an additional write-down of $10B if the monolines were to be downgraded and that MER shares are valued more appropriately below $44.
  
• Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Citigroup and lowered their target to $22 from $33 to reflect the company's continued share losses in the search market and uncertainty over 2008 investments. Oppenheimer lowered shares to Perform from Outperform and lowered their target to $20 from $30 to reflect the weaker than expected 2008 margin guidance.
  
• Friedman Billings downgraded T Rowe Price (NASDAQ: TROW) to Underperform from Market Perform and expects margin pressure in 2008.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• JP Morgan downgraded Scotts Miracle-Gro (NYSE: SMG) to Neutral from Overweight.
  
• UBS lowered Centex (NYSE: CTX) to Neutral from Buy.
  
• Merrill lowered American Campus (NYSE: ACC) to Neutral from Buy.

Goldman Sachs keeps a list of the Top Five Tech Value Stocks. The list includes big tech companies like Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC). To make room for Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Accenture (NYSE: ACN) were pushed off the list.

Intel was added to the list because Goldman thinks it will beat Q2 earnings. Cisco was added because it falls into the "top quartile on both growth and value lists" at the investment bank.

The problem with these lists is often that, for shareholders, they are a look into the rear view mirror. Wall Street has already caught on to the fact that these are promising companies, a fact that may already be priced into their shares.

Over the last year, Intel's shares are up nearly 40%. Most of the concerns about it continuing to lose market share to AMD (NYSE: AMD) are now gone. Cisco's shares are up about 50% over the same period. The market's perception that its router business will benefit from cable and telco upgrades to handle more broadband traffic have pushed the shares relentlessly forward.

To say that there is something wrong with Intel or Cisco would be to get on the wrong side of Wall Street's perception. But that does not mean the shares are going higher.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

The Forbes/Slatin Real Estate Report, edited by industry expert Peter Slatin, is a professional-level newsletter geared to the more sophisticated real estate investor.

Along with his own insights and advice on investment opportunities in the sector, one feature of the service is its monthly interviews with REIT-sector equity analysts. Below, I share some highlights from Slatin's interview with Jordan Sadler of KeyBanc Capital, who discusses some of his current favorite ideas among REITs.

FORBES/SLATIN: KeyBanc is focused on the U.S. What are you seeing here?

SADLER: My view, initiated last October, was a cautious outlook overall. The recent M&A squeezed shares. We continue to feel that way. REITs are trading at a level where it's hard to justify incremental investment across the space, although you can be tactical with names that are more attractive.

FORBES/SLATIN: In your universe of tactical moves, what stands out?

SADLER: Our top pick was Digital Realty Trust (NYSE: DLR), and it continues to be. It has fundamental drivers that are significantly differentiated from most of their REIT brethren. That, in theory, should be able to generate excess profit until competition gets hip, which seems to be slowly happening. For their type of building, there is limited supply, and a ton of demand, from financial services, Internet and enterprise companies and channel users.